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BIG PHYSICS, BIG QUESTIONS –

3D printing’s future is the high street, not the home

Last week, US firm UPS announced it is putting 3D printers in 100 stores in response to demand from a public that wants to get creative

By Aviva Rutkin

IF YOU print it, they will come. Last summer, two surfers wanted to film themselves in the waves, so they headed over to The UPS Store. The guys asked the store to 3D-print a prototype of their idea – a gizmo that lets you hold a camera in your mouth. Now their MyGo Mouth Mount is sold at surf shops around the country.

At the time, that store in San Diego, California, was part of a pilot project, one of only six UPS stores in the US that offered 3D printing. Last week, the company announced that it had been a success and plans to put printers in 100 more US stores. It’s an intriguing move for a company that is generally known for shipping packages. Daniel Remba, small business technology leader at UPS, says the firm hadn’t considered 3D printing until a survey suggested that customers were clamouring for it.

Time to talk shop

(Image: UPS)

“They told us that 3D printing was something they thought would be helpful for their businesses, but they didn’t want to invest in printers or didn’t have the capital to do it,” Remba says. “We wanted to make all that stuff convenient.”

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UPS isn’t the only big name adding 3D printing to its bag of tricks. Staples is testing printers out at stores in New York and Los Angeles, and Amazon now offers customised trinkets like toys and jewellery. 3D printing shops are popping up in London too. Even some public libraries have started putting machines in. Is printing about to make the leap from niche tool to popular hobby?

“It’s reached a point where we’re really starting to see its wide applicability of use,” says Michael Chui at consulting firm McKinsey Global Institute, which last year identified 3D printing as a technology likely to transform society in the next 10 years.

But the industry has yet to come up with a compelling reason for people to buy their own 3D printers. It is usually cheaper and easier to purchase what you are looking for than it is to print it yourself. The machines can be difficult to use and if there isn’t a template out there for the object you want, you might have to design it yourself, which is tricky for an untrained user.

“3D printing is only good to produce objects that are really one-offs,” says Matt Ratto of the University of Toronto in Canada. “You don’t want it to reproduce industrial goods. What you want it for is to produce things that are really custom.”

Services like the one UPS offers may represent a happy medium. Those who know how printing works can quickly make the item they need, without having to invest time and effort in their own machine. Those who don’t can talk to a professional, who will walk them through the design and printing process. It makes sense when you consider what the printers are most useful for&colon; ideas like the MyGo Mouth Mount, what-ifs in search of a fast track to reality.

As 3D printers become more powerful and widely available, there will be greater demand for people who know how to use them, says Ryan Schmidt of design company Autodesk Research in Toronto. He envisages experts who can embed electronics, make unusual shapes or mix materials on demand. “Maybe there will be thousands of people whose job is just to talk to people and do custom design,” he says.

3D-printing experts will embed electronics, make unusual shapes or mix materials on demand